Free The Heather Moon by Susan King Page B

company?" Tamsin asked. She knew she sounded sarcastic, and did not care. "Or will you let me out for a little each day, to take in sunlight and air for their benefit?"
    He sent her a sour glance. "A few days in a dungeon might tame that tongue."
    "'Twould likely make it worse," she retorted.
    Archie smiled indulgently at them. "Tell me," he said after a moment of tense silence between Tamsin and William. "Your mother, Lady Emma, is at Rookhope again? I know she left there, years ago... after ye were taken away as a lad. A fine, bonny lady, yer mother. I didna know she had returned. I heard she had married Maxwell o' Brentshaw."
    "She did, fifteen years ago. He died last year, and she came to live at Rookhope again."
    "Ye stayed away from Rookhope a long while, lad. Years more than the span o' yer confining."
    "I had a place at the king's side," William said. "I went to Rookhope Tower only occasionally, until last year. Now..." He shrugged. "A few of my kin live there with me." He slid Tamsin a glance. "Though we rarely use the dungeons."
    "Then you must get someone to sweep them out," she snapped.
    "Indeed I will," he growled.
    "A fortnight might nae be long enough for you two," Archie observed. "Ye may have to keep her longer, Rookhope... er, until Musgrave and I work out our differences."
    "I think not," William said.
    Tamsin leaned toward her father. "I know what evil scheme you have in mind," she said between her teeth. "Stop."
    Archie blinked at her innocently.
    William looked out over the hills, his hand still on the bridle of Tamsin's horse. She tugged at the reins, and he let go easily, surprising her. But he sent her a warning glance.
    Swiftly, acting on impulse, she leaned forward and kneed her horse, surging along the road in the direction of Merton.
    William swore and shouted her name, echoed by Archie. She heard the steady thud of hooves behind her. If she had her way, neither of them would catch up to her. She was a skilled rider on a swift horse, and lighter by far than her pursuers.
    She guided the gray off the road, urging him to a long, easy gallop across a flat meadow. Then she tucked low and let him sail over a hedge. She knew the land here, knew the swells and slopes, and veered the horse toward another track that would take her around behind Half Merton. A quick glance over her shoulder revealed her father and Scott riding toward the hedge.
    Galloping low and swift along a straight track, she soon neared a forking of the path. She saw something in the earthen crossing, and reined in so quickly that her horse whickered and turned. Tamsin leaned over to look at the ground.
    A few stones lay in the dust, along with some scratchings in the earth. The stones outlined a small heart, with several long intersecting lines, one ending in an arrowed point.
    The design was a patrin, a sign left by Romany to indicate the direction they had taken, and understood by their kind. Such signs were hardly noticed by unpracticed eyes, and made little sense except to the Romany. Tamsin could read the symbols as clearly as she could read English, French, and Latin.
    The heart referred to a specific location, more than a dozen miles from the crossroad, in the territory of Liddesdale. And the straight lines, with one angled point, showed the direction the group had taken.
    Tamsin circled her horse in the road and glanced toward Merton, so close that its crenellated tower roof rose into the sky, separated from the road only by a wide swath of trees. Then she looked back at the men riding behind her. She saw Archie point toward her, and saw William Scott lean low to urge his horse faster along the track.
    Tamsin turned the horse and took the left fork.
    * * *
    She was gone by the time they reached the crossroad. William cursed under his breath and circled his horse.
    "She's off to Merton," Archie said, pointing to the right.
    "I saw her ride left," William answered impatiently.
    "She has nae reason to ride that way. If she did,